Doug Taren, PhD

The Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health at the University of Arizona was awarded a $3.2 million, five-year grant from the Department of Health and Human Services to support a Public Health Training Center.

In September, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced the award of $16.8 million to support 27 Public Health Training Centers (PHTC) at schools of public health and other public or non-profit institutions across the country.  The PHTC program helps improve the public health system by enhancing skills of the current and future public health workforce. The funding was only available to institutions accredited to provide graduate or specialized training in public health.

The new center will be known as the Arizona Collaborative Public Health Training Center (AzPHTC) to address the workforce training needs with health and education partners throughout the state. The center will provide free or subsidized training to public health workers in state, county and tribal health departments, in addition to community-based organizations addressing health concerns.

Jennie Mullins, MPH

The training center will also focus on individuals and organizations that provide services to populations with poor health outcomes that live in the underserved major metropolitan centers of Phoenix and Tucson, rural areas, along the US-Mexico border, and Native American tribes in the State of Arizona.

“The training center will provide much needed face-to-face and web-based training for the public health workforce to strengthen capacity to protect and promote health in the State. This is particularly important for Arizona which has some of the greatest health disparities in the nation and unique challenges to ensure the health of our population,” said Jennie Mullins, MPH, professional development coordinator in the health promotion sciences division of the Zuckerman College of Public Health.

The Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health at the University of Arizona in Tucson and Phoenix, is the first nationally accredited college of public health in the Southwest and the only nationally accredited college of public health in the State of Arizona.

The Zuckerman College of Public Health offers an academic curriculum that includes undergraduate, masters, and doctoral degrees. The college consistently ranks among the top five in American Indian and Hispanic graduates and students among the 44 nationally accredited schools of public health.